


The Last Enemy

by emery_and_lead



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Cannon Divergent - Series 03, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Implied Relationships, Let's Pretend Mary Doesn't Exist, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:52:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emery_and_lead/pseuds/emery_and_lead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On November First, a call from a desperate man leads Sherlock and John to the dead bodies of a couple murdered in their home following what looks like a simple friendship gone sour in the face of one man’s descent into insanity. When Sherlock and John take the case, they uncover a dozen old, wealthy criminal families ensnared in a web of unlikely alliances, with one man at its center, pulling all the strings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> Because everyone loves to put Sherlock in Harry's world, I decided to put Harry in his.

**Chapter 1: The Red-Headed Lily**

 

Early on the morning of November First, a scream tears the air like white fire at the death of the witching hour. From a quaint house on a quiet street, a shadowed figure plumes out through the door like black smoke and steals away, snagging in the thorny tangle of rose bushes gathered at the foot of the garden. Behind the rising spires of the village church, light bleeds across the horizon, foggy and blurred past distant mountains swollen with the unborn sun. In the room at the top of the stairs, a baby begins to cry.

When the police come they move up and down the stairs, through 33 Godric’s Hollow, and on the second floor landing they find a pair of glasses, frames mangled and one lens cracked, at the foot of a body as bent and broken as his fallen spectacles: two pairs of empty eyes that stare at the wall, seeing nothing. Upstairs, in the nursery, another body lies lifeless in front of an empty cradle, the mobile wheeling slowly overhead. Long red hair fans out around her bloodless face like a dark halo, or a thick pool of spilt blood.

“Lily and James Potter,” says Lestrade, a grim shadow at the top of the stairs. His shoulders fill the doorframe and his unbelted coat cuts bleak lines around his figure, his face shrouded. He sounds tired. “Twenty-one years old, both.”

“Shame,” says Donovan, face looming wraithlike from the darkness above his shoulder. “She’s very pretty.” Lestrade grunts noncommittally, in acknowledgement or weary agreement. Grimacing in sympathy, for Lestrade and his haggard face or the woman lying cold and crumpled on the ground—perhaps both—Donovan steps over the threshold. She glances over at the cradle and frowns. “Where’s the baby?”

“Man named Hagrid dropped him by the precinct this morning. Big guy. Came in on a motorbike.”

“He the killer?”

“Dunno.” Lestrade shrugs and moves into the nursery. Donovan follows. The thick rug muffles their steps, but Lestrade walks softly anyway, eyes trained on the woman, who lies still as in sleep. A faint, early morning light through the window warms the walls around them as the mobile rotates gently on its axis. “I doubt it. Said he was a friend of theirs, went by to check on them and found this. When he heard the baby crying upstairs, he bundled him up and took him along to the station. Was crying through his whole report, too.”

“Just ‘cause he was crying doesn’t mean he didn’t do it,” Donovan argues.

“’Course not. But the bodies’ve been cold for hours. This one has an alibi, fits right up with his story. And you’ll never guess who verified it,” he adds with the flickering ghost of a smile.

Donovan hums in mild interest as she crouches beside the body, glass from a shattered light bulb popping beneath her feet. When Lestrade stays silent she sighs and pivots to face him, unconcerned with hiding her indulgent half-smile in the sleepy haze of early morning. “Who was it, then?”

“ _Albus Dumbledore_.”

Donovan’s eyebrows shoot up. “ _Sir_ Albus Dumbledore? As in, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Albus Dumbledore?” Lestrade nods, and she sits back, impressed. “No kidding.”

“Yeah. He came sweeping into the precinct, cool as you please, and told us Hagrid was with him all night. Gregson wasn’t best pleased. She said he acted like the Prime Minister himself, but Kingsley likes him: says he’s got style.”

“I hear he’s a weird one. All right weird, though: not creepy weird like… well.” Her eyes slide toward Lestrade slyly, and dart away quickly when she sees his frown.

As Donovan ducks her head, glancing back down at the corpse’s pallid face, she sees a haunting loveliness still lingering in the curve of her cheeks and the arch of her brow. Something catches her eye in the dim morning light: a flash of bright color between the woman’s hip and her arm. A little yellow bottle of bubble juice lies trapped beneath the body, the plastic bent so far inward its cap has popped off, leaving a sticky puddle of soapy water drying in the strands of the rug and the woman’s blouse.

“Look at this. Probably fell out of the victim’s pocket, crushed under her weight when she fell,” says Donovan, and her gaze is drawn once again to the cradle. “Poor boy,” she murmurs, and stands to touch the mobile lightly with a finger until it stops spinning. Pebbles of broken glass from the burst bulb line the inside of the cradle. A single sharp line of blood stands out across the nose of a soft white bear tucked into the corner of the cot, as though drawn by a blade from the bear itself.

“There’s blood,” she says, startled.

Lestrade hums agreement as he crosses to stand beside her, leaning over the cradle’s barred railing. “Little guy had a nasty cut on his forehead, from the glass when the light blew. Got it all stitched up, but it’ll probably leave a scar. Was shaped weird: like a lightning bolt.” He reaches out as though to touch the bear’s small white ear, but his ungloved finger stops to hover a hair’s breadth away. He trails that one finger around to trace its face, not quite touching, a soothing gesture meant to calm a frightened child he can’t quite reach. “I’m gonna get him another one. He deserves… something, you know? He can hold it. When he’s sleeping.”

“Yeah.” Donovan says, and nods, biting her lip. She tears herself away from the blood on the tiny bear, from the empty cradle: from the now-motionless mobile, and the blind eyes of the dead woman. “Where’s Anderson?”

Lestrade turns away too, heading toward the door. “No idea. But he should have been up here ten minutes ago. Anderson!” he calls down the stairs, and the still, reverent quiet of the moment is broken. In Donovan’s head, this small, yellow-walled room where a baby once slept peacefully and a woman drew her last breath becomes a crime scene, and the beautifully tragic little details of a life—of a family’s lives—cut short become evidence: simple clues leading to a big, clean, rational picture. She assigns a number to the lifeless red-haired woman and tries to forget the image her mind has conjured of what those green eyes would have looked like in life, wide and bright and laughing.

 

\---

 

Harry’s small body presses warm and close against Remus’ chest, right over his heart, and Remus imagines he can feel the quick wing-like flutter of Harry’s pulse humming in tandem with his own. Little fingers, damp and tacky with baby-spit, curl in his collar. They stick lightly to the skin over Remus’ collarbone. He feels hollow, cut adrift, and he anchors himself with the press of wet cheeks and tearstained kisses against the baby’s head. The gentle rise and fall of Harry’s chest over his own centers Remus. With his nose nestled softly in Harry’s silky hair, he whispers soothing nonsense above the small, shell-like curve of an ear. The thin black strands of his hair curl under the heat of Remus’ breath.

Harry’s other hand clutches his bear by the ear: it is the same but not the same, Remus knows—the neat line of stitches across its belly, where Remus sewed it up last summer after the accident with the fountain pen, have disappeared. Remus wonders if the old bear sits discarded, now, in a cardboard box stacked high amidst a thousand others, musty with the damp and cold, in some draughty evidence locker twelve feet underground.

“Shhh, Harry, shhhh,” he murmurs, even though Harry is not the one crying. “It’s all right now, everything’s gonna be all right. I’m right here, Harry, baby, shhh. I’m here, love; you’re safe now.”

For the hundredth time in the last twelve hours, Remus wonders, half-desperate, _where’s Sirius?_ Uncertainty churns low in the pit of his stomach, and every few minutes it rises like the tide, bile creeping slowly up his throat until he swallows it back.

When a knock echoes harshly from the entryway, he sucks in a sharp breath, a heady swoop of relief warring with suspicion in his gut. His chest feels odd, stretched taut like a drum’s skin. He crosses the room and slowly draws the front door open.

 

\---

 

Suspiciously, Sherlock eyes Lestrade where he hovers just outside the door to 221B. The hostile angle of his body bars entrance like a pale, glowering bear standing guard over the distal boundaries of its territory. “Why are you here, Glenn?”

“Ah. Hallo, Greg, how’re things,” says John to Sherlock’s shoulder as he gently prods Sherlock’s body out of the way, ignoring the baleful glare aimed at the side of his head. He offers Lestrade a wide, welcoming smile and ushers him inside with the sweep of one hand, holding a scowling Sherlock aside with the other. His smooth movements speak to the ease of long practice, as though he’s spent all the years of his life with one hand in his pocket and the other holding Sherlock back.

“Why are you always letting people in?” Sherlock asks testily. Arms folded across his chest, old dressing gown hanging loose around his legs, he juts his chin forward sullenly and pouts like a child. “Why do they _want_ to be here? I’m terrible company.”

“And yet you don’t see me running for the hills,” John reminds him, and Sherlock scowls back.

“You don’t count,” he announces, as though this is the highest of praise, and John smiles indulgently and nods his thanks. Locking eyes with Greg, they share a secret, amused smile as Sherlock stalks over to his chair and flops down dramatically, ratty dressing gown billowing out around him

“I only came by to tell you we caught the crazy son of a bitch who killed the Potters,” Lestrade says, and John and Sherlock both turn to look at him, John’s eyes clear with open interest and Sherlock’s narrowed in grudging curiosity. “But not before he managed to do a hell of a lot more damage. Decided to blow up a whole street full of people. Thirteen more dead,” Lestrade sighs, rubbing a tired hand over his eyes. “ _Moody_ got involved. _Mad-Eye_ Moody, the one with the prosthetic leg and the lazy eye. Terrorist guy. It was a bloody nightmare.” He sighs and slumps down into an empty kitchen chair. “At least now it’s over.”

“Who was it?” asks John. “The murderer.”

“Sirius Black.”

“Sirius Black?” John squawks, mouth dropping open. “As in, Sirius Black of _the_ Blacks? As in, the Noble and Most Ancient House of—”

“You know, repeating all of their myriad names won’t get you the answer to your question,” Sherlock says, snidely, and drags his dressing gown closed around his chest with a huff. “You just sound like an idiot.”

“I guess you boys didn’t watch the news this afternoon,” says Lestrade, glancing at them side-eyed and holding back a smile. “It was plastered all over the place,” he adds, sobering. “’Former heir to the Black family fortune: murderer.’ It’s a shame, too; he was shaping out to be a right sight better than the rest of those snakes. But the whole lot’s mad as hatters. Guess he couldn’t escape the old family curse.”

“It’s not a _curse_ ,” scoffs Sherlock. “There’s no such thing. It’s _genetics_.”

“Yeah,” agrees Lestrade, nodding. “The man was cursed by genetics.” He flashes a wide, teasing grin; Sherlock harrumphs and turns away.

Sifting through the ever-growing pile of debris scattered in an organized chaos across the coffee table, John fishes out the remote control and flicks it at the television. The picture blinks and fizzles with static, and when it clears John nearly drops the clicker, fumbling as his hand goes lax with shock. It’s a street he’s seen before: he’s fairly sure he’s been to that bakery at least once since his return from Afghanistan.

A huge crater yawns across the length of the road, from pavement to pavement, deep and dark like a gaping entrance into hell itself. The blast nearly bared the bedrock and sent jagged chunks of asphalt crashing through the windows of the surrounding buildings. All the panes punched out: only small, tooth-like shards jut out from the frames. Some of the detritus had catapulted high enough to clear the walls and scatter across the rooftops. Thirteen dead, Lestrade had said, and the words flash across the screen. It’s not the facts, but the evidence that has John recoiling in his seat—the bloody, mangled remains of more than a dozen bodies. Torn flesh on the pavement, in the street; blood spatter painting the shop fronts in garish Technicolor.

“Yeah,” says Lestrade, quieter now, mournful. “’S bloody awful. One man—Peter Pettigrew, a friend of Black’s—all we found was his finger. Just a single, bloody finger, that’s all was left.”

Catching Greg’s gaze and seeing the grim light in his eyes, John shivers.

“And there was Sirius Black,” Lestrade adds, nodding toward the screen where a handsome, dark-haired man smiles out from a driver’s license photograph. “Laughing hysterically—laughed so hard he was crying—and pulling at his hair with both hands. Crazy son of a bitch. He was the Potters’ best friend, they say. Godfather of their little boy. ‘S fucked up, is what it is.”

“Yeah,” murmurs John, glancing uneasily at the television where the ruined street spans once again across the screen. “Fucked up.” He feels something brush the top of his foot and looks down just in time to catch Sherlock’s foot alighting for a moment on his own, before darting away again like a pale, startled bird. He looks up, stares for a moment into wide blue eyes, before Sherlock’s gaze cuts quickly away.

 

\---

 

When the phone rings, Sherlock moves away from the eyepiece of his microscope for one distracted moment, glancing at the caller ID: he doesn’t recognize the number. Idly, he presses the talk button and mouths _client_ in John’s general direction. “Sherlock Holmes.”

“Mr. Holmes,” a man says down the line, voice pitched as though begging, and choked with desperation. “Don’t—please don’t hang up on me. You’ve got to help me.”

Sherlock pushes away from his microscope and stands, intrigued. “Why would I hang up on you?” In his peripheral vision, he sees John straighten in his chair and glance over curiously.

“I—the police, they won’t… no one will listen to me.” The voice is breathless: pleading. “Please, you have to listen.”

Sherlock steps into the sitting room and motions John over. “What is it,” he asks, voice already sharp with anticipation as John comes to stand at his side. “Tell me.”

The man breathes hard down the line and says, gravely, “Sirius Black… is innocent.”

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter titles are bastardizations of the titles of ACD's Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Chapter one from "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League." Nothing, including the chapter titles, is mine. Unbetaed, so feel free to leave concrit, it is probably very necessary.


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